"Habibi"

Habibi (Craig Thompson)

This book really frustrated me. Thompson's art is gorgeous, and the story and setting contained within is absolutely top-notch, but the first half the book drove me bonkers with the way that Thompson kept cutting back between three different periods in the heroine's life from page to page. One page she's a teenager living in a boat in the desert, two pages after that she's a grown pregnant woman in a harem, and two pages after that she's a child at a slave market. Not only did this prevent the story from building any kind of momentum, but it also serves to drain any tension from the two chronologically earlier story segments. You'll have a visually exciting, kinetic chase scene with guards yelling "Kill her!", but you already know what's going to happen, because a page ago you were reading about her in ten years.
Luckily, this is only the first half, and once the book switches its focus to the titular Habibi, it also proceeds in chronological order, and - what a shock! - not knowing what's going to happen actually allows for some, you know, shocking and surprising moments. Overall, the story and art are good enough to make this easy to recommend; Just don't let the irritating first half's mish-mash put you off.

Grade: B+

"The Mead-Hall"

The Mead-Hall: The Feasting Tradition in Anglo-Saxon England (Stephen Pollington)

Nerd alert. This book is exactly what it sounds like, a big scholarly investigation of mead halls, including where they were located, how they were built, what people ate inside, the feasting equipment they used, and what entertainment they had. It's pretty interesting stuff, if not exactly gripping, and if nothing else it makes you look smart when you can point out how Eric's club on True Blood is set up like a traditional mead hall. I don't know that I can really recommend this for most people, but I liked it.

Grade: B

"Queer Pulp"

Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions form the Golden Age of the Paperback (Susan Stryker)

I really wanted to like this book, but unfortunately, it has one fatal drawback that keeps it from being a great read like Lesbian Pulp Fiction - there's no samples. Stryker describes what's in the book and you see the cover, but that's all, and it can get really aggravating when she'll say something like "The book's contents don't match the lurid cover". Great - let me see some of the contents! Maybe it's a copyright thing, I don't know, but it really hurts the book. It's still entertaining to read, but I started just flipping through and looking at the covers after a while. For die hards only.

Grade: C-

"Bound for Canaan"

Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America (Fergus Bordewich)

Hey, I know this guy! And unlike "America's Great Debate", I don't have to knock off half a point for a goofy rhyming title this time! I liked Bordewich's previous book well enough, and I liked this one even more. I put this down to the fact that this is, as far as I know, the first and only exhaustive history of the underground railroad, and let's be honest, it's probably inherently more exciting reading about slaves escaping bondage than a bunch of rich white guys arguing about how far slavery should extend. Also, it's nice reading a book like this that's more uplifting than depressing - Tom Benton from the previous book might be a Profile in Courage, but even he wasn't down south risking his life leading people to freedom. Highly recommended.

Grade: A

"The Nth Doctor"

The Nth Doctor (Jean-Marc Lofficier)

Nerd alert. The original Dr Who TV show was canceled in 1989 and got a not terribly successful made for TV movie in 1996. This book covers the various written and discarded screenplays prepared for the movie, and while I found it quite interesting, it's probably only for Dr Who supernerds. I could have done without the "Script Review" section of the book as each script is praised highly, even the one I had trouble keeping awake though (I was more of a fan of the insane script where the Doctor goes around throwing people into vats of acid and killing them with karate chops). Also, I'm still not sure how a human and a Gallifreyan can have a kid given all the regeneration energy in a Time Lord.

Grade:
If you understood the last sentence: A-
The other 98% of the population: Skip

"Our Friends Beneath the Sands"

Our Friends Beneath the Sands: The French Foreign Legion in France's Colonial Conquests 1870-1935 (Martin Windrow)

I got pretty much what I expected with this book - like Windrow's The Last Valley, this is a massive brick of a book overflowing with information. I liked this book pretty well, but it shares the previous book's flaws, namely that the endless details of which military organization each battalion, squad, etc. belongs to can get a little tiring. The book also suffers from a common historical pitfall the other book didn't in that it just reaches a stop line and ends without a climax, and honestly I felt like the end of the book was more interesting as the legion beings experimenting with cars and trucks instead of camels. These are mostly minor issues, though, and the Legion's history in Indochina and Morocco is quite interesting, even if the book never quite raises to the level of excellence from the author's previous work.

Grade: B+

"Modern Ireland"

Modern Ireland: 1600 - 1972 (R. F. Foster)

Well, I tried with this one, but I only made it about 150 pages into this 600 page book and had to quit. The author assumes a much deeper background in European history than I have; I can keep straight what's going on with Charles II, James, and William of Orange off screen, but when the narrative starts asking that you already know the details about their various religious attitudes towards their Irish subjects, that's where I start getting lost. Probably a good book if you already know the material, as it seems more like a reflection on changing Ireland than a straight narrative history (for which I continue to search in vain).

Grade: D+

"The Dream Machine"

The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey (Richard Whittle)

Pretty much exactly what it says: The definitive history of the V-22, starting with a lengthy introduction outlaying the concept of a "dream machine" - an aircraft that can take off like a helicopter but fly as fast as a plane. My only issues with the book were that this introduction goes on a little long; I understand the author is setting the table for the Osprey to appear by talking about autogyros and failed attempts at tilt-rotor planes, but it can drag a little, and the biographies some people get feel pointless (does it matter that the Osprey's chief designer wore loud Hawaiian shirts?). Other than that, I found the book very interesting, and quite harrowing during the Osprey crashes. I don't know if I can recommend this generally, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Grade: B+

"In the Garden of Beasts"

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin (Erik Larson)

This book is the anti-Agent Zigzag; Where there I had no expectations and loved the book, here I heard this book getting praise up and down and, well. I guess my first clue should have been the fact that all of two weeks after the book came out my wife found a free copy sitting out on the curb. As it turns out, this book ended up in my own donation pile after blazing through it, and I feel bad for anyone who spent $10 on this thing. I don't get what all the hype was about, as I found this book to be boring, plodding, and - worst of all - pointless. If you have even a cursory knowledge of the subject matter, you already know everything in this book, and you've probably read it in a more entertaining form. Even if the material in this book is a surprise, the author's tedious framing device does it no favors - the American ambassador is, like almost everyone in the book, a flat character  and his daughter sleeping around seems completely disconnected from the rest of the book. Bizarrely, the book is about the ambassador, but only covers the brief period of time that is his tenure up through the Night of the Long Knives, then hits the fast-forward button on the long rest of his term before coming to a baffling ending. In short, stay away.

Grade: F

"Agent Zigzag"

Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal (Ben Macintyre)

It's weird to be calling a book subtitled "A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal" a fun read, but here we are. The book's subject matter - which I'm sure you can guess from the title - certainly doesn't sound like it would make for an enjoyably breezy book, but the titular Agent Zigzag is such a character that it works. (He's also ably assisted by the German intelligence organizations, who come off, if not quite as comic opera buffoons, at least a bunch of eccentric, weird hard-luck cases.) When I first started reading this book, I didn't think I was going to enjoy it - I've read enough World War II to choke a stable full of horses, and this looked like just another WW2 book crowding the new-release shelves at your local bookstore for a week before hitting the bargain bin. Instead, this is a very pleasant surprise and a book I whole-heartily recommend.  

Grade: A

"Lord of Light"

Lord of Light (Roger Zelazny)

I thought this book was great - imaginative, overflowing with ideas, and reading as strikingly modern for a book that came out in 1967. The basic plot is... you know, this is one of those books you might want to just read; Zelazny introduces a lush setting that sounds kind of silly compressed to a paragraph, but here goes:
The book's story is a conflict between a group of colonists from Earth who have anointed themselves gods and rule over a planet with advanced technology indistinguishable from magic, and our hero Sam, who struggles against them in the guise of the Buddha. I can't really say more except that this is a wonderful read. My only caveat is that the book's structure is a little strange - the book kicks off with Sam being summoned down from a radiation belt, which is actually almost the endpoint of the story told in the book. After one flashback it goes into a linear narrative that barely goes past this beginning point before the story is over, which did leave me a little confused (although I more chalk that up to reading this while being sick and in a daze). All in all, this book is a gem, and you shouldn't miss it.

Grade: A

"A Bride's Story, Vol 1"

A Bride's Story, Vol 1 (Kaoru Mori)

A very well drawn, charming manga I couldn't really get into. The setting is interesting and unusual, but this seems to be a a slice-of-life book - in other words, nothing really happens; There's one chapter about making rabbit stew. I mean, it's not bad, and the art is nice to look at, but it's just not my personal taste. (Also, the titular Bride is kind of a mary sue.) There's worse ways to spend some time than reading this, but I wasn't gripped, which makes this hard to recommend.

Grade: B-

"The Currents of Space"

The Currents of Space (Isaac Asimov)

I think I'm giving up on early period Asimov; It's a mess. This book is better than Pebble in the Sky, but that's not saying a whole lot. Reading it nowadays, it's serviceable, but the story is clunky and takes forever to get going (I bailed on page 75, at which point exposition was still getting dumped on me). Oh, and the main character having amnesia does the book no favors. (And! There's also there's some very clumsy parts that come off as racist to the modern reader where a black guy in space reflects on how people of different colors ended up settling on different planets). This may be a case of Seinfeld is Unfunny, and obviously Asimov got a lot better, but I really can't recommend these early novels.

Grade: C-

"The Mists of Avalon"

The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)

Let's take a nice break from massive, nerdy history books to read a massive, nerdy women's studies retelling of the Arthurian legend. (I'm not kidding about how massive it is - the parts just dealing with Arthur's mother is enough text to have been a full-sized novel by itself.)
Where viewing the story through the eyes of the female characters didn't really work for The Penelopiad, it works wonderfully here, breathing new life into the old, tired story. The male characters stay offscreen unless what they're doing effects the women, so the book's real hero is Morgaine, with the villian being played by Geunievere. Gwen here seems to have severe agroaphobia along with the intellect and emotional maturity of a five year old - in other words, she comes off as a perpetually terrified, charmless, child-like, dumb weirdo. Arthur doesn't come off that much better, and neither does Lancelot, come to think of it. I think part of the problem - and this is so wide-spread that it even effects Morgaine - is that the main cast at times acts forehead-slappingly out of character. This seems to be a result of the story having to hew more or less to the original myth. It's annoying, but I suppose in the end a good tradeoff for how well the end result turns out. Even though the book runs over 800 pages, it really only drags when we're following Gwen around being dumb and scared, and these stretches are a drop in the ocean (albeit parts I recommend skipping anyway). Highly recommended.

Grade: A

"Does A Bear Sh*t in the Woods?"

Does a Bear Sh*t in the Woods?: Answers to Rhetorical Questions (Caroline Taggart)

Perfectly inoffensive little bathroom book that - well, just read the title, really. This book's good for a larf, with Taggart's over-literal interpretation of the questions and informative if misguided answers keeping it moving along. The one thing I wished had been included as the author answering my  my favorite question - what is the sound of one hand clapping? (Ask me next time you see me in person and I'll generate the sound.) That's really it, so prepare yourself for the sound of a grade being assigned...

Grade: C

"Fighting Techniques of the Napoleonic Age"

Fighting Techniques of the Napoleonic Age 1792 - 1815: Equipment, Combat Skills, and Tactics (Robert B Bruce, Iain Dickie, Kevin Kiley, Michael F. Pavkovic, Frederick C. Schneid)

There's a whole series of these books; Like the others, this is a nice introduction to the time period you're looking at, with bunches of nice drawings (although I started skipping the map pages). I feel like I missed some details as the authors seem to assume - safely - that you're not reading this book in a vacuum and it's either being read as an appetizer for, or a companion to, another book about the time described. That being said, this book isn't particularly enthralling on its own, but it's perfectly serviceable. That sounds like faint praise indeed, and I really don't want to condemn this book too harshly. The book accomplishes what it sets out to do, and I can't ask for more than that.

Grade: B

"You Must Be Skidding!"

You Must Be Skidding! (Tony Davis)

A fun little bathroom book about ridiculous cars, including some I've never seen before - no easy feat given my enjoyment of this particular weird little sub-genre. Davis' dry humor is quite good, but my favorite part is the goofy illustrations, with the absolute stand-out being a sad little kid bundled up in winter gear tooling down the road in a refrigerator with wheels, a windshield, and a trailing power cord. Great stuff.

Grade: A

"Bushwhacked"

Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America (Molly Ivins & Lou Dubose)

I love how when you go to the Amazon page for this, it screams
Only 5 left in stock (more on the way).

I mean, I don't want to be rude, but is there a really huge demand for this book? To sum it up in one word - one devastating word, in the world of politics - it's (bum bum bum bum bum bum)

Dated. 

It's well written and entertaining, but let's be honest here: No matter how big an asshole move it is, do people remember old W as one of the worst presidents because he refused to ratify Clinton's workplace ergonomics legislation? I'd say no, and this book was published before the epic, presidency-destroying bungles of, say, Iraq's disastrous occupation, and eating birthday cake while New Orleans was destroyed. Going back and reading this book now, the two things that leap out are Enron, and the very start of the Iraq war. Everything else, horrible as it is, seems like small potatoes compared to what W ended up doing before we got a responsible adult in the white house again (wow - more like bite size political opinions.blogspot.com! -ed). 
So should you read it? If you find it for free like I did, sure, but given the age of the material, this is hard to recommend otherwise.

Grade: B? Yeah, let's go with that.

The Union of Superlative Heroes/The Order of Nefarious Villains

The Union of Superlative Heroes/The Order of Nefarious Villains
by Chet Phillips (Etsy Store: http://www.etsy.com/listing/78536654/superlative-heroes-and-nefarious)

I bought this as part of an April's Army drive on Regretsy.com.  I thought a book would be my best bet as I'm not a jewelry person at all--I don't even wear my wedding ring and I'm freaking crazy about N.Ham!

Chet Phillips is a great artist and writer.  The book is short, but very well put together with DC and Marvel characters reimagined into a steampunk universe (Stupendous Miss instead of Super Girl, for example).  My only complaint is that I want more short stories!  My favorite was Marquis Le Bat's letter to Gentelman Mint explaining how to bypass the many traps in order to visit his lair.

"World's Fair"

World's Fair: A Novel (E.L. Doctrow)

After throwing City of God spitefully into the donation pile, I realized I have another Doctrow novel on one of my to-read shelves. And it's..... okay? Unlike City of God, this time we only have two narrators, and you can actually, you know, tell what's happening. Except that what's happening isn't really that interesting. A kid is born, and he grows up (the book ends when he's just about in the fifth grade). And.... that's it. It's not really that gripping or interesting, unless you really NEED to read, for example, three pages about the protagonist buying and eating a baked potato. I liked the parts written by the main character's mother, which are written in second person, but they're just trimming on the main, bland course. Maybe I'm missing something; People apparently love this novel, while I basically dozed off reading it. Shucks.

Grade: D+

"City of God"

City of God (E.L. Doctrow)

This may be one of the most unreadable books I've ever attempted; I want to go back and bump "V." up a full letter grade after reading this disaster (can you bump a grade of "Weird" up?). The back of this book says that "With brilliant and audacious strokes, the author... creates a breathtaking collage of memories, events, visions, and provocative thought, all centered on the idea of the modern reality of God". The reality is that what you have here is a big dumb mess of non-sequitur nonsense, with the author jumping between unconnected charecters, all of whom write in the first person, with no identification as to who's who, ruminating on what they had for dinner and walking around New York while nothing happens. The poison icing on this sewage cake is that you also have mixed in high school philosphy level musings about the Big Bang, and what if, like, God is like, inside of each one of us, man?
I usually try to get at least 50 pages into a book, but I only managed to endure 20 pages of this crap and regretted every single one. What the fuck.

Grade: F-

"Old Man's War"

Old Man's War (John Scalzi)

I guess I'm kind of an impatient reader, because when I start a new book, I want to be interested and gripped right away, and if I'm not interested by page 50, I usually put the book down. The kind of opening I appreciate is one that grabs you immediately, such at this book, which starts with "I did two things on my 75th birthday. First I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army." Boom, I want to see what happens right from the first three sentences. The book held my interest from there, as our hero signs up, finds out why the army is recruiting senior citizens, and is catapulted out into space where, uh, I can't think of a way to finish this sentence without either giving away too much of what happens to our hero or sounding like the back of a book promising an action-packed rollercoaster ride!!1. Let's just say I liked the book a lot and slap on a well deserved

Grade: A

"V."

V. (Thomas Pynchon)

This is a tough book to review. This isn't just a novel, it's Literature, and Pynchon isn't interested in telling an interesting story so much as showing off how well he can write. And he can write very well - to be fair, although nothing much happens in this book, nothing much does happen interestingly, which was enough to keep me happy for a while. After enough pages, though, I just got tired of our heroes wandering around sleeping on the subway and trying to score and found myself getting bored. It never really gets bad, but when the novelty wears off, there just isn't enough to hold my interest, no matter how good a writer Pynchon is.

Grade: Weird

"The Glorious Cause" (Oxford History of the United States)

The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763 - 1789 (Robert Middlekauff)

I'm kind of running out of things to say about huge, nerdy history books that I really enjoyed. So here's another huge, nerdy history book I really enjoyed, everyone. Even though the bulk of the book by necessity is about the Revolution, Middlekauff wisely, I think, stays away from writing too much military history, giving sketches of the important battles and using the war as a framework to hang investigations of the social, political, and everyday lives of Americans on. This sets the book nicely apart from some of the other dozens of military histories of the Revolution I've read. Overall, I did find myself skipping pages a few times, but this is a great book, even for someone who's already well-versed in the subject.

Grade: A

"Citizen of the Galaxy"

Citizen of the Galaxy (Robert Heinlein)

This is not Heinlein's best work. I'm not sure if this novel was published in serials, but it seems plausible, given the fact that it reads more as four connected short stories with the same hero. Unfortunately, only the first one of these is very good. The middle two see Heinlein at his worst, laying out complex new human social structures and (I imagine) perspiring heavily while cranking out the pages about trading nubile young space girls between ships. The last fourth picks up a little bit, but it eventually devolves into not terribly interesting legal and economic wrangling, and the book doesn't so much end as peter out.
Still, for all I complained, it's not a bad book, it's just middle of the road. Heinlein's done far better than this, and I'd recommend passing this one over unless you really need to have everything he's written.

Grade: C

"Grandpa Won't Wake Up"

Grandpa Won't Wake Up (Simon Hill & Shannon Wheeler)

I don't really have a lot to say about this book except that I really enjoyed it. The bare-bones premise is that Grandpa told his grandkids he'd take them to the zoo, and he'd take them soon, and it's already noon, and Grandpa won't wake up. The writing is very funny, the art is very apt, and the attention to detail is wonderful (I lingered over the list at the back of fake horrible children's books). That's all I have to say.

Grade: A

"The Samurai Banner of Furin Kazan"

The Samurai Banner of Furin Kazan (Yasushi Inoue, translation by Yoko Riley)

I hate to be posting so many negative reviews lately, but I'm seemingly in a streak of bad luck. That unfortunately continues with this book, which I got a hair over a quarter through (page 50 out of slightly under 200 in the main text) before bailing. I'm not sure if the blame lies with the original author or the translator, but I suspect both. The issue I'd lay at the feet of the author is the way that the book's main character is a brilliant swordfighter and strategist, but for seemingly no particular reason; He'll "just feel" the right strategy, or he'll just think he's leaping at a guy and swinging his sword when he's defeating seasoned master samurai. This, to put it mildly, does not generate a lot of tension or interest. As gravy, add on what seems like a very literal translation that makes the book read in "This happened, then this happened" style and I didn't feel like I was missing anything by putting this one down early.

Grade: D+

A Clash of Kings

A Clash of Kings (book 2 of A Song of Ubiquity and 25% off at Target)
George R. R. Martin

As I had said in the previous review, this book was better in hindsight having made it through the second book, which I found to be a vast improvement.  Which was true.  And now, having finished the third one, I can say, jeez, I dunno.

In any event, it's a great improvement over Game of Thrones, in that the intrigue is more interesting, and there's a hell of a lot more action, which certainly helps make this one the best I've read in the series so far.

Good:

ACTION.  Jeez, and how.  Yes, this book is talky, but you can't say that shit doesn't happen in it.

Different characters.  Davos Seaworth's chapters especially are interesting reads, bringing new perspective to the story, especially as one of the few people in the book not constantly under oligarchic pressure from their noble blood and kin.  It's also nice to see some characters formerly sitting out the story in the background get the spotlight for once as well.

Better characterization.  Catelyn Stark actually gets some dimensions, and this book is all the better for it.  Her sorrow and frustrations were one of the most well written parts of the book I thought, even if they were a bit un-subtle.  Arya Stark's chapters got a lot more interesting as well, and it was nice to see her given more to do other than mope about not wanting to act like a lady.

Bad:

Drags at points.  This is an improvement over Game of Thrones, but, honestly, starts to get worse again in the next book in the series (review forthcoming.)  Again, I often would sigh to myself that another Sansa chapter was coming up, or the real offender this time, Danerys Targaryen, whose story really has yet to interest me very much even three books into the story.  Obviously it's a slow build with her, but jeez, this is pushing it for me.  The most improved award goes to the aforementioned Arya, whose chapters got pretty compelling.  Sadly, Jon Snow's chapters, which, after his initial "okay, sigh, he's getting into trouble again" phase, got quite interesting, seemed to slow back down into literal slow, plodding marches through the snow.

The dialogue isn't great.  Tyrion Lannister seemed wittier in the first book, to me.  At least no one was given the wind again.  But, geez, Danerys has some hokey lines.

Grade:  A- (this will drop back to reality for the next book.)

"Ready Player One"

Ready Player One: A Novel (Ernest Cline)

Ready Player One is the worst kind of frustrating: A great first third that turns into a disaster. The book is about a reclusive billionaire who dies and wills that his heir will be the person who finds an easter egg hidden in the virtual reality that he's invented. The first third of the book is our hero, a poor kid with a dream of finding the easter egg, putting some clues together and getting started on his quest.
And it's good! At times the novel does threaten to become "Hey, Remember the 80's? The Book", but this first third is thrilling, and I was really rooting for our hero. So what happens? Well, all the chaercters in the book are one-dimensional, and this isn't much of a problem when it's our hero against the simulation. But when the author writes the dread sentence "I realized I was in love with Art3mis", well, that's where the book goes in the toilet, and while it does eventually recover somewhat, it never becomes as good as the first third. Honestly, I don't know that finishing the other 2/3rds is worth it to find out what happens, but I was interested enough to do so. The momentum from the premise and the first third was enough to drive me through the slog that is our hero, having made it in the virtual world, pining for his girlfriend. Sometimes less is more, and without the romantic subplot, I might have been able to recommend this as a classic. As it is, take my recommendation with a large grain of salt.

Grade:
First Third: A
Middle Third: D
Final Third: C
Overall: C+

"Priests of Mars"

Priests of Mars (Graham McNeill)

I'm gonna get right to the point on this one: Do not buy this book. There's no ending. This isn't just a Empire Strikes Back case where you have a climax and a shocking revelation, but the fallout has to wait for the next installment, or a Mass Effect 2 style finale where an immediate threat is dealt with, but the main villain is still on the horizon. No - this is a Halo 2 style disaster where the story just ends. It's particularly bad in this case as the entire book is an expedition leading up to arriving somewhere full of amazing secrets and, at the end, our heroes get there, and before you see what's actually there, boom, the book's over.
It's a shame, too, because the book up until the non-ending is quite good; This is vintage McNeill, and even if he does commit the sin of introducing too many groups of characters, it's very interesting. In fact, the non-ending probably wouldn't be such a big deal if the rest of the book wasn't so good. As it is, unless and until a sequel is released, I'd steer clear of this ripoff.

Grade: D

"Black Orchid"

Black Orchid (Neil Gaiman)

There's one great moment in Black Orchid, and it appears right off the bat. (It's also spoiled in the introduction, which I recommend you skip). Unfortunately, once this great moment is passed, the shock, interest, and forward momentum it generates is disappated as the story wanders around and becomes boring and, in the last chapter, nonsensical. In this last chapter, the heroine's ex-husband - a gun runner with no combat skills - somehow and without explanation becomes Billy Badass, sneaking around the jungle blow-darting mercenaries and sneaking up on and murdering a character who's presented as a great hunter. Even worse is the ending, which I am about to spoil:

At the end, the bad guys, paid mercs and thugs, catch up with our heroine, who they've flown down to Brazil to kill or capture, and have been following her through the jungle for days. When they finally catch up to her, they refuse to kill her, because "she's beautiful". Then they leave. Seriously. This is really what happens.

Apparently this is one of Gaiman's first books, and he obviously got better, but I honestly can't even recommend this for Gaiman completions. You're not missing anything except some nice art and one great moment, and that falls pretty short of the price of admission.

Grade: D

"Swallowing The Earth"

Swallowing The Earth (Osamu Tezuka)

Apparently Tezuka is the "God of Manga", and here's a manga from him. And, uh, it's good. Like Promethea, I feel like I'm doing a disservice to explain too much of the plot, so the very broad outline is that the story kicks off with two soldiers looking for a mysterious woman named Zephirus who's up to no good, with our hero soon turning up in the shape of a drunk named Gohonmatsu Seki, who attempts to figure out what she's up to and maybe stop it in between getting drunk and unloading cargo down at the dock. There's a lot more to it than that;  at heart the book is an adventure story, although individual chapters can be at turns comedic, heartbreaking or - as the book goes on and synthetic skin shows up - skin-crawlingly creepy. The art's very nice, dating from back before manga became very stylized, with a more cartoony flavor to it. The only caveat I'd apply here is that there's a lot of nudity and violence - the book suggests readers over 16 - and that, having come out in Japan in 1968, there's some, um, dated depictions of South Seas islanders and American black people in the book. If you can look past this (or just read disclaimer about this issue, which is among the first things you see when opening the book), you shouldn't pass this up.

Grade: A

"The Penelopiad"

The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus (Margaret Atwood)

Boy, I wanted to like this book. It's a retelling of the Odyssey, from Penelope's point of view, with a backup Greek chorus of 12 of her maids who end up murdered when Odysseus finally comes home.
Unfortunately, there's a very basic problem with this premise, which is that Penelope wasn't on the Odyssey, and the author either can't or won't come up with anything nearly as interesting. Want to guess what Penelope was doing while Odysseus was out there? She sat at home worrying and watching the suitors eating all her food. Combine that with the Greek chorus ending up being pages of goofy poems I skipped and I was pretty disappointed with this book. The most amusing part ended up being the chapter titles, which is never a good sign.

Grade: C-

"The Candidate's Wife"

The Candidate's Wife (Patricia O'Brien)

Here's what happened in the 54 pages I read (out of less than 350 in the book total): The titular candidate's wife eats some eggs for breakfast. The candidate gives a speech - described in a paragraph or two - and then goes for a jog. I yawn mightily. The candidate's daughter wants to give a speech at a breakfast, but she can't because there isn't enough time. I get bored and my attention starts drifting. The candidate's wife takes a car ride. They get on a plane and land at an airport.  I realize nothing interesting is going to happen and put the book down. I come to my book review blog and assign the dreaded

Grade: F

"Promethea" (Book 2)

Promethea: Book Two (Alan Moore)

Pretty much more of the same - which is a good thing in this case. With the basics taken care of, this is where Promethea starts getting really weird; The back half of this book is, in order, a issue-long exploration of how a living concept like Prometha has sex, a story about Y2K causing people's clothes and furniture which is made out of electronic goo turning sentient and attacking, and Prometha being shown the history of the universe and the human race, themed to the major arcana of the tarot cards, by the talking snakes of her caduceus, who always speak in rhymes. In other words, don't miss it.

Grade: A

"Promethea" (Book 1)

Promethea: Book One (Alan Moore)

I'm tempted to just write "It's another great Alan Moore comic" and leave it at that. Mostly, I don't want to have to try and summarize the book's plot; It's very weird and interesting, and summing it up in a few words just makes it sound nonsensical, whereas Moore unfolds it skillfully on the page. I'm just going to leave it at saying the plot is about the imagination, and the book is brimming with exciting ideas and typical Moore-ian level craftsmanship. Recommended.

Grade: A

Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones
George R. R. Martin

I had a hairdresser ask me how I could have possibly put this book down and start reading other books when I had trouble getting into it at first.  Apparently your mileage may vary with this, was the lesson I got.

So, yes, obviously, I had trouble getting into this book.  It doesn't help that it has slightly fewer characters than a Suikoden game.  I have to say, watching an episode or two of the TV series helped.  I've only seen one or two episodes of the TV series, though.  It helped put a face to the at first endless parade of new characters being introduced, and afterwards I was ready to give the book another go (and apparently putting aside all hope of ever finishing the Iron Warriors omnibus.)

There's a dramatis personae at the back of the book, which I didn't notice was there until I was done with the book.  It would have helped immensely to know it was there.  Or if it had been printed at the front, so I could have known whom the Westeros equivalent of Hetman of Genome Brigade 321 Gilead was.

I've already finished the second book, which addresses at least some of my complaints about the first book, which is largely the lack of characterization or character development.  It's much improved in A Clash of Kings, but throughout Game of Thrones, I felt confined by some of the characters, especially since the whole story is divided into chapters as seen by specific characters.  I can't say how many times I skipped ahead in a Sansa chapter to see who would be next out of frustration with Sansa being frustrated.  The only characters that actually seem to grow throughout the book are Arya Stark and Jon Snow, both of whom only seem to grow when they resign themselves to being stuck with life having dealt them a shitty hand and can't mulligan it.

Another frustration is some major characters never have a "chapter," and spend a lot of time "off camera," leaving me, two books in, wondering just what kind of character some people actually are, since we only see them through other characters reporting far-away actions and reminiscing about how great/terrible they are.

Overall, once you get over the initial hump, the book glides along on all cylinders, and the court intrigue and medieval combat actually becomes gripping and compelling, in spite of the oft too archetypal heroes and villains.  (Most of whom eventually improve anyway.)

Grade:  B+

"Don't Know Much About the Bible"

Don't Know Much About the Bible: Everything You Need To Know About the Good Book but Never Learned (Kenneth C. Davis) [Second Look!]

This is a great starting place for beginning bible history. Although it's a hefty book, over 500 pages, Davis keeps it moving right along and avoids managing to get bogged down in many of the drier parts of the Bible (just like R. Crumb!). There's only two issues to be aware of, neither of which bothered me that much: The first is that this is really a starting place - having listened to a bunch of The Human Bible, a good amount of this material was familiar to me, which wasn't really a problem as I just skipped through it. Truly, if you don't know much about the Bible, start here, but if you're already well versed, you can probably skip it. (Also, be prepared for Davis' stream of bad jokes and pop culture references, most of which are rather clunkily dated [Baywatch] or just plain bad [The First Wives Club, seriously].)

Grade: A-

"The Scar" (Second Look)

The Scar (China Mieville)

Up until now, all the Mievelle books I've been read have been feast or famine: You either get a gangbusters book crammed with great ideas like Perdido Street Station, or you get a tedious, unreadable slog like The City & The City. As it turns out, The Scar is neither; It's more of a big, tasteless buffet, the first mediocre Mieville book I've read. Never let it be said Mievelle doesn't have original ideas, and the book is fairly bursting with them. The problem is that there's no beginning, middle, and end the to plot. There's no climax. Instead, the book reads like "Here's a bunch of shit that happened," and the result is that while I wasn't bored, the story never kicks into high gear. Instead, the story remains shapeless and flabby. It's kind of like this: Imagine the first Indiana Jones movie is six hours long, and at the end, instead of opening the Ark, the Germans decide it's a bad idea and go home, and also let Indy go because they're not that bad after all.
I can't really recommend this one, and at this point I'm starting to worry that Mieville has already written his one great book and needs to hire a new editor.

Grade: C-

"The Civil War" Volume 3

The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol 3. Red River to Appomattox (Shelby Foote)

First a quick note on the cover if you click the link: I have this as a three-volume set, and Amazon only has the first two volumes of that particular set. So this links to another edition, which frankly has a big dumb ugly cover, and also, has less colons in the title, which I got used to in Vol. 2. Very important business here.
As to the actual content of the book itself, well, it's more of the same from Volumes 1 and 2. Volume 3's probably my least favorite. One reason for this is because Foote's bias shows a little - probably the worst example of this is in all three volumes is his blowoff of the Fort Pillow massacre, which appears in this book. The other factor is ending fatigue; Once the actual war is wrapped up, Foote followed Jefferson Davis around and his path crosses with almost all the war's major figures so you see what happened to everyone. To be honest, I didn't really care that much. That sounds bad, I know, but there it is.
Even as my least favorite of all of the 3 volumes, all the praise I had for Volumes 1 and 2 still applies, and if you're planning on reading these, by the time you've finished the first two, I doubt you're going to quit anyway. Just don't start peeling the plastic off the cover like I did.

Grade: A

"The Civil War" Volume 2

The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 2: Fredericksburg to Meridian (Shelby Foote)

First of all, the title needs more colons (I believe it is only tied by Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope: Special Edition in the colon wars).
So what can I say about this book? It's like Volume 1, which is to say, good. And big; It's very big. Good book to squash bugs with. This book covers the middle part of the war, and I guess it's my personal favorite, since it has the swing of the pendulum from south to north, and covers some of the war's biggest events at Vicksburg and Gettysburg.  Also, when I was reading Volume 1, some of the plastic on the cover started peeling up, and I couldn't help but pick at it. That did not happen with this volume. The end.

Grade: A+

"The Civil War" Volume 1

The Civil War: A Narrative - Fort Sumter to Perryville, Vol 1 (Shelby Foote)

It takes a certain amount of something to just flat out name your book "The Civil War", but in this case I have to admit the author has made a strong case to the definitive title. First things first: Even though this is only "Vol 1", this is a huge book, and when not being read, can be used as a weight to straighten out curved Magic card sleeves. At 800 big pages (not counting bibliography!) for a measly (as of this writing) $16 (cheap!), I believe this may be one of the cheapest cents-to-words ratios you can get.
And, of course, it's not just quantity, but also quality. Don't let the size of the books intimidate you - the material inside masterfully condenses and weaves the events of multiple theaters of war into one coherent, enjoyable narrative. I read all three volumes as a teenager, and I'm not saying that to brag, I'm mentioning it to illustrate that the material contained within is never obtuse. The only issue I had was that the book was published in 1958, so you do run across the occasional weird bit of slang, which is honestly more entertaining than anything else. What else can I say? Don't let the size scare you off; You'll want to pick this up if you have even the slightest interest in the subject. Maybe that should have just been the review. Well, there's always Volume 2.

Grade: A+

"America's Great Debate"

America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union (Fergus M. Bordewich)

First of all, I'm deducting half a letter grade for the book's title - I realize that this may be unfair and the publisher may have forced this on the author, but I can only grade the book that was presented to me.
Luckily, the rest of the book is pretty good. It's about the 1850 Compromise, which is one of those parts of history I enjoy reading about because they're usually fast-forwarded past. The main characters of the Civil War haven't appeared on stage yet, so you end up with heroes and villains you've probably never heard of - how many people now remember Tom Benton or the villainous Henry Foote? (Well, okay, turns out Benton was in Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage", so I guess a fair number of people remember him. Dang!)
In any case, I enjoyed this book a good deal. Bordewich doesn't waste time trying to justify, excuse, or apologize for anybody, which is a nice change, and even though the eventual outcome of the book described in the struggle is obvious, it's no less enjoyable for that. This is a good book to read as a prequel before a look at the civil war that's just over the horizon when the book finishes, and to that end I've been instructed to re-read the face-crushingly huge "Civil War" by Shelby Foote next, so look forward to that.

Grade: B+ (A- if re-titled)

"dot.bomb"

dot.bomb: My Days and Nights at an Internet Goliath (J. "First initials make you look like a douchebag" David Kuo)

Yes, it's another goofy business book. This one covers the rise and unsurprising crash and burn of Value America, a company I'd never heard of, which differed from a typical .com boom/bust story in that it had a vision for a inventoryless system (dealers ship directly to customers), hypothetically cutting costs to a bare minimum. Obviously this didn't work, and if you weren't already put off by that first sentence, you might be interested to read this book. The beginning deals with raising the capital to start the company, and while this could be a little dry, I found that it moved right along. The real meat of the book starts when Kuo joins the company and, well, you know how the .com bubble turned out. Getting there is an interesting ride, if hard to recommend for the general reader - but, like the other goofy business books, I'd recommend picking this up if you see it in your local bargain bin.

Grade: B

"The Battle of Brazil"

The Battle of Brazil: Terry Gilliam v. Universal Pictures in the Fight to the Final Cut (Jack Mathews)

I'm not a huge Brazil fan - I saw it once and thought it was pretty good - so I only read half of this book, that being the book's first part, a narrative history of Brazil's troubled post-production. The second half is the entire 161 page screenplay, which I didn't feel the need to read, even the way it's presented here with every other page sprinkled with interesting factoids. The first half of the book I enjoyed a great deal, but it's a little hard to recommend - although it's well written, it's a well-written history of a backstage Hollywood power struggle, which I don't imagine has a huge audience. I refuse to engage in the pointless cliche of writing something like "If you're a huge Brazil fan, you'll love this book," both because if you are chances are you have it already, and because I have more respect for my readers than to baldly state something so self-evident.

Grade: C+

"Crap Cars"

Crap Cars (Richard Porter)

The Carthage to the Rome that is "The World's Worst Cars". This book differs from that one in that it has only 50 cars (to the 150 included in World's Worst), and the writing is much snottier. These aren't necessarily negative, but this is a really short book, basically 50 snarky paragraphs, and it does feel rather thin. Still, I enjoyed reading it, so I guess I can't be too hard on it.

Grade: C+

"On the Firing Line"

On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple (Gil Amelio & William Simon)

Okay, I know what you're thinking: "N Ham, you're extremely smart and good looking. Why the heck did you read this?" Well, I basically read this as a very long footnote to the definitive history of Apple Computers (a book originally titled "Apple"). This book went into more history on Amelio's 500 days as CEO before he was replaced by Steve "Steve Jobs" Jobs.
And how was the book? Well, it was entertaining, I'll give it that - in fact, I think I may need a new category to put this book and "Anatomy of a Business Failure" in. Since this is Amelio's side of the story, he of course paints himself in the best possible light, and while I did get tired of the way that you can never go a huge amount of pages between hearing about his PhD, his jet, his expensive wine cellar, his vacation house, his "Classic 1973 Mercedes-Benz", etc, I can't really say I was ever bored. I'd take anything you read in here with a grain of salt, and I wouldn't read this without reading "Apple" first (which I can't find on Amazon; Maybe a more unique title would have helped), but yes, I did enjoy this book. This is one of those books I personally enjoyed but have a hard time recommending to a general audience. I don't know that you'll get anything from this if you don't know a lot about Apple - for example, I couldn't help but laugh at Amelio bristling at his replacement killing the sad flop that was the "Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh" (which he calls "incredible," and I guess it is since it was a not particularly powerful computer priced, at the low end, to move at seventy five hundred dollars) and predicting doom for Apple after Jobs takes over again.  So I guess I would recommend this book if you already have that kind of knowledge, and it doesn't hurt that I got this out of a clearance bin for $1 (or 1/300th the price of one of the bottles of wine Amelio had to mention he owns).

Grade: C

"Pebble in the Sky"

Pebble in the Sky (Isaac Asimov)

Another book I just couldn't get myself into, sadly. This is one of Asimov's first novels, and it kind of shows - the exposition is clumsy, there's no real main character, and some of the writing is just downright ham-fisted (characters actually go "By Space!"). Normally I'd say there's an interesting idea here, but there kind of isn't: 50's magical atomic power transports an old man far into the future, where, um, there's a guy who made a machine that makes people smart, and, god, this is just not good. Maybe it gets better - I read 100 pages and wasn't interested, so I put it down. Obviously, Asimov's novels got a lot better, but I have to give this one the sad grade of

Grade: D+

"The Siege of Budapest"

The Siege of Budapest: One Hundred Days in World War II (Krisztian Ungvary & John Lukacs)

I just couldn't get into this book. It's fairly dry, which doesn't help, but I think the real problem is the authors familiarity with Budapest; They write about sections of the city as if the name is all you need to get. Coming off a string of local history books, I can see where the Hungarian reader would understand what the authors are saying, but given that I know next to nothing about Budapest, I found my attention wandering. An Amazon I review I read complained about a lack of editing in the book and a possible bad translation, and I feel like there's a good book in here, but, unfortunately, not the book that was presented.

Grade: D

"Conquered into Liberty"

Conquered into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battles along the Great Warpath that Made the American Way of War (Eliot Cohen)

Hey, what a surprise - it's another nerdy history book I like! This one focuses on the "Great Warpath", the region of New York and Canada between Albany and Montreal. By focusing on one area, the author's able to include a wide variety of battles between different opponents (French vs British, Canadian vs American, American vs British) and types of battles (raids, naval battles on the Great Lakes, and even the battle of Saratoga) as he ranges from Schenectady being burned in the 1600s up though the Canadian-British invasion through the Great Lakes in the 1800s, with a postscript of the diplomatic efforts to prevent war breaking out as the centuries go on. Since so much history is covered (and the book isn't terribly long), you don't get the vast depth of a book like Bloody Mohawk, but the sheer diversity in the combatants and types of battles is very interesting. I think I enjoyed the book a little more because of the local connection, but it's well written enough that I'd recommend it even without this.

Grade: B+

"Imperial Munitorum Manual"

Imperial Munitorum Manual (Nick Kyme & Graham McNeill)

I think this is one of the nerdiest books I own. This is the companion tome to The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, except it's all about the Departmento Munitorum, AKA the supply guys who keep the Imperial Guard in lasguns and pre-packaged meals. If that sounds boring, well, it (mostly) isn't; It's mostly a grimly humorous approach to the red-tape-stuffed bureaucracy of the 41st millennium. You know what, no matter how I describe it, this still sounds boring. Let me put it like this: Although this book, like the Uplifting Primer, sometimes goes a little too far into detail and becomes unpleasantly dry, the book's overall flavor is very entertaining, along with the meticulous attention to detail (The book even has fake copyright and printing information). It's not quite as good as the Uplifting Primer, but it's really not bad.

W40K Nerd Grade: B-
Non-Nerd Grade: D-

"Mass Effect: Retribution"

Mass Effect: Retribution (Drew "Added his last name to my spellcheck and then realized this is his last novel" Karpyshyn)

I liked this book, but I liked the author's previous novel (Ascension) a little bit more; I thought this was still pretty good, but this book suffers from two handicaps that the earlier book doesn't. The first one is that this is a kind-of sequel to Ascension, or at least stars charecters from it; If you haven't read Ascension, I don't know that you'll be able to follow what the fuck is happening. The second one, and the one that really bugged me personally, is that five of the six main charecters appear in Mass Effect 3, and most of them are major charecters on top of that, which means that there isn't a huge amount of tension when they face off in this book - you don't have to be psychic to figure out that, for example, the Illusive Man isn't going to get killed in a spinoff novel. This means that when you have Kai Leng and Admiral Anderson in what's supposted to be a tense standoff, you already know that they're both going to make it out alive so they can appear in Mass Effect 3. Those issues aside, if you've already read Ascension, I'd recommend this, but otherwise I wouldn't go out of your way to read it.

Grade for N7s: B-
Normal Civilian Grade: C-

"Taking On the System"

Taking on the System: Rules for Change in a Digital Era (Kos)

I felt bad finding this in the dollar store. Even Amazon has this marked down to $6. I guess it's because it was published in 2009, and since it was written by one of those tricky Internet guys, the information in it is old news? Either way, I liked this book. It's a bit brief - it doesn't feel like its 290 pages, certainly - but I thought there was a lot of good information in here, and even if it's two years old, it still seems quite valid to me. Given the brevity of the book, I don't know that I'd pay too much for it, but it's a steal at a dollar, and I wouldn't complain for six, either.

$1 price: A-
$6 price: B

"The Hundred Years War"

The Hundred Years War: The English in Frace 1337-1453 (Desmond Seward)

In contrast to the monstrous history books I usually read, this book is positively bite-sized; You get the whole history of the (slightly over) 100 years war from a god's eye view. Seward never stops unnecessarily, and as a result the book never bogs down. Since the roses are never stopped and smelled, you may not be too pleased when famous persons or battles are ushered onstage, dealt with, and shuffled off instead of being investigated further, but I liked this approach. I'd view this as a book to read to get a basic grounding (or even to see if you're interested in the time period), and after reading it, you can move on to more specific books covering whatever you're interested in, or a more in-depth history of the war itself.

Grade: B+

Hark! A Vagrant

I'm a big fan of Kate Beaton so I was super excited to get this one. Contains funny comics about such topics as Georges Danton, the Bronte sisters, and a very fat Shetland pony. A lot of the comics are on her site for free, it's true. BUT. Supporting someone like Beaton with cold hard cash is worthwhile. Must read for history nerds and webcomic fans.

Grade: A++

"Mass Effect: Ascension"

Mass Effect: Ascension (Drew "Should Have Added This Name To my Spellcheck Library" Karpshyn)

Yes, here's another Mass Effect novel. This one takes place after the first game, instead of being a prequel like the last one, and I think comes off better for it; The universe is fairly established now, so instead of "And here's what a Turian looks like!" it goes right into the action, which is pretty good. I still can't really recommend this book for non-Mass Effect fans - by now you'll be confused if you don't know what a Quarian or a biotic is - but it's a good read. In the way the original novel lead into the first game, this book leads into Mass Effect 2, although I found it entertaining even having played Mass Effect 2 already. I never want to bust out the old IF YOU'RE A FAN OF X, YOU'LL LIKE THIS trope, so we'll leave it at this: If you've played any of the Mass Effect games, there's certainly worse uses for your $8.

Grade for N7s: A-
Normal Civilian Grade: C

"Ghost in the Wires"

Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker (Kevin "Free Kevin Mitnick" Mitnick)

If you grew up at a certain time, you may have witnessed the at-times ubiquitous Free Kevin movement of the late 90's and early 2000s. Mitnick had - has? - a reputation as a famous evil computer mastermind wizard, but reading his book, I was struck at how more times than not, he got the information that he needed by practicing social engineering instead of any computer skills. In fact, by the second half of the book, you'll be reading "I social engineered" easily double the amount of times he's actually hacking in anywhere.
That's not to say the book is any less interesting - Mitnick's titular adventures, which include time on the lamb after the FBI gets wise to him, is gripping stuff. Since this is Mitnick's own book, he of course comes off as the hero, but I have a lot of sympathy for him regardless, since his hacking is presented as a form of curiosity (he's not using stolen credit card numbers or anything). My only caveat is that the book is a little bit technical - Kevin and his co-author usually stop to explain the more in-depth concepts, but if you don't know what a BBS or a phone phreaker is, you may find yourself a little lost. With that said, I really enjoyed this book, and I'm confident it's a great read for fellow nerds, if maybe not this author's mom.

Grade: A

"The Last Valley"

The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam (Martin Windrow)

Here we go again: Another one of my patented huge (656 pages without bibliography), depressing (see subtitle), immensely gripping (see grade) history books. Windrow makes good use of the expansive page count, giving flavorful detail and context to the titular battle, and sticking around for 50 pages afterwards the close the case. The detail Windrow can go into at times will drill all the way down to the kind of rice holder a typical Veit Minh soldier would carry his rations in, so by the time the battle starts you're well acquainted with each force, which does make it a little more depressing when they're killing each other with mortar rounds, napalm, all kinds of guns, flamethrowers, and eventually spades and fists as the battle devolves into horrible trench fighting.
The only complaint I have - and I had to look far and wide for something to complain about - is that Windrow can occasionally get a little over-enthusiastic about listing all the units posted to a location; I understand why, but I eventually started skipping these parts, as I had enough trouble keeping the divisions straight, let alone the battalions and companies. With that aside, if you're interested in the subject at all, this is the book to get.

Grade: A-

"Silver Tower"

Silver Tower (Dale Brown)

Hey, remember in 1993 when Gorbachov was overthrown by the Evil Russian Communists (TM) and a moderate, pro-USA faction took over in Iran and we all flew in our spaceplanes to our armored space stations full of lasers and particle beams? Good times. That's the setting for this enjoyably dated techno-trash, centered around the titular Silver Tower, a space station the US uses to keep an eye on the Soviet invasion of Iran, until it comes under spaceplane attack from the resurgent Commies. I'm sure when this came out it was a chilling look at something something or a pulse pounding blah blah, but now it's a charmingly goofy retro-future full of cartoon characters. Frankly, I think this helps the book rather than hurts it, but I'm not sure I'd really recommend this book unless you love:

1.) Tom Clancy-style trash
2.) Evil Russian Communists (TM)
3.) Goof-ass visions of the 90's and now that never came to pass

If you do meet all three criteria, please contact my parents, who I'm going to be giving this book to, and you may want to act fast before they take it to the used book store.

Grade: B-

"A Place in History"

A Place in History: Albany in the Age of Revolution, 1775-1825 (Warren Roberts)

I wanted to like this book; I thought you could read Bloody Mohawk and then this for a nice overview of the capital region's history. Unfortunately, Roberts wanders around far too much. Half the book is about the French revolution, which is interesting, but isn't really about Albany, and the lack of focus really hurts the book. The very beginning, about the battle of Saratoga, and the very end about the Erie Canal manage to stay on topic, but the bulk of the book - a framing device examining the lives of six people who visited Philip Schuyler, and then a long biography of a French noblewoman who spent a whole two years in New York - meanders unpardonably. Most of the characters we get substantive biographies of end up going to France, or fleeing from France, or are French noblewomen, and ten pages into a biography of Gouvernor Morris where he's been getting laid in Paris for pages, I find myself flipping back to the cover and making sure I'm still reading a book that's about Albany in the revolutionary period. I'm sure there's a good book in here somewhere, but I have to regretfully attach the "badly needs an editor" tag and assign the dreaded

Grade: D

"Art of the Mass Effect Universe"

Art of the Mass Effect Universe ("Various")

A very nice, high-quality artbook about, well, you can guess which universe, I'm sure. A little more detail on 1 and 3 would be nice - about 50% of the book is ME2 - but I really liked how you get to see the different concepts for characters that were never used, and the commentary on discarded ideas is spare but illuminating. Maybe not worth $40, but for the $26 I got on Amazon I'm very pleased. That's all I have to say.

Grade: B+

"The World's Worst Aircraft"

The World's Worst Aircraft: From Pioneering Failures to Multimillion Dollar Disasters (Jim Winchester)

At last, the stunning finale to the trilogy! You won't believe what happens to your favorite characters from "The World's Worst Cars" and "The World's Worst Weapons!"
No, I'm lying; It's just another book, which is about (checks title) bad airplanes. I don't know a lot about airplanes, so I was more interested in the parade of unbelievable disasters from the wild and wooly teens and twenties, where putting eight wings and sixteen motors on a houseboat looks comparatively sane. As for the rest of the book, well, it's an interesting bathroom book, and I wasn't expecting or asking for more than that.

Grade: B

"Dead Witch Walking"

Dead Witch Walking: The Hollows, Book 1 (Kim Harrison)

Ladies and gentlemen, it's finally happened. Brace yourself - a free Kindle book that didn't make me want to die! Yes! A free e-book that wasn't about God giving court reporters magical psychic powers or Evil Muslim Terrorists meeting at Shoney's to plan throwing grenades into churches or small towns putting up christmas trees right in the road and being surprised when cars hit them! The curse has finally been broken, which is kind of funny since the book is all about an alternate Earth where vampires, werewolves, pixies, witches, etc. live side by side with humans. And it's good! I mean, it's not great literature, but it's clever and brisk and at one point the main charecter turns herself into a mink and the bad guy captures her and puts her into a rat-fighting league to try and bump her off without leaving any evidence behind. I mean, I can pick some nits - the main charecter starts by leaving her job at the supernatural equivilant of the FBI, which reacts by putting out a hit on her, which everyone seems to think is normal and makes sense, but which I myself never understood. But really, I'd be happy with this book even if I'd paid for it, and at the price of free, I'm not gonna complain. Heck, I may even pick up some of the other books in the series, no doubt all part of the author's evil plan in offering the first one for free.

Grade: B+

"Fiasco"

Fiasco: A History of Hollywood's Iconic Flops (James Parish)

A lightweight examination that follows Hollywood's history by tracing the flops, this book starts with Cleopatra up through (fairly modern) bombs like Battlefield Earth. Parish always keeps the book moving, so you never go too in-depth on any of the movies, but I like how you get a sense of the buisness changing as you go from movie to movie. Parish steers clear of movies that already have extensive post-mortems, so there's no Heaven's Gate or Bonfire of the Vanities on here; Instead, this is a nice, breezy starting place if you're interested in this genre (or want to see if you're interested in this genre, I guess).

Grade: B+

"The World's Worst Weapons"

The World's Worst Weapons: From Exploding Guns to Malfuctioning Missles (Martin Dougherty)

Cousin of The World's Worst Cars, here's, well, you can guess from the title, right? I enjoyed this book a good bit - the sheer depth of weapons covered from throwing stars to nuclear howitzers kept it moving nicely. My one complaint is that there are some strange choices in here; Seeing the mighty Stuka included here is a bit strange, but what really takes the cake is the legendary AK-47 being inducted as one of the world's worst weapons. I know that this is just the author's opinion and that you can't subjectively say that it is wrong, but, it's wrong. Other than that, good book.

Grade: B

"The Brief History of the Dead"

The Brief History of the Dead: A Novel (Kevin Brockmeier)

This book is a big disappointment, in the same manner as "The City & The City" - the author has an interesting idea, which is unfortunately all the author has. In this case, the author has a city where the living dead are held - those who someone alive remembers - until they pass into true death when nobody left alive remembers them. And what does the author do with this idea? Nothing; We fart around watching people wander around the city, then we cut to another plot where a researcher at the south pole wanders around the south pole. I had to repress the urge to keep going "Yeah?" and "And?" while reading the book, then started skipping pages, then just quit reading it. I'm willing to forgive the fantastical setting (the author has a virus killing just about everyone in the world, even submarine crews, etc.) if there's a good story, but this is just meandering bullshit.

Grade: D-

"Mass Effect: Revelation"

Mass Effect: Revelation (Drew "Had to Look Up How to Spell This Last Name" Karpyshyn)

This is probably just about what you'd expect from a prequel novel to a series of space opera videogames: A serviceable plot, introductions to all the alien races and big themes of the universe, and a hook leading into the upcoming game. I don't want to say the book is breezy, considering it starts with a research base full of civilians getting massacred and ends on a note just as grim, so let's say it moves right along. Given all that, this is a good read for Mass Effect fans (even if you've played all the games), but without any commitment to the series, it's a bit of a tough sell given all the world-building going on.

Grade for N7s: B
Normal Civilian Grade: C-

"Anatomy of a Buisness Failure"

Anatomy of a Business Failure: The Incredible Story of the Beloved, Multi-Million Dollar Apple Book Center (Sherry McGee)

Hey, remember the Apple Book Center? No? Me either, but here's a book by the founder examining her business and why it failed. This sounds boring, but this book is entertainingly bizarre - instead of a lot of facts and figures (although they are included), it tends towards being the author's stream of consciousness, which sometimes addresses her business and sometimes addresses (for example) the time the author was accosted by a customer who hated the in-store music or suggestions for what books to give teens to read. (My personal favorite part comes at the beginning of the book when the author writes, "Keep reading and see how it all panned out." Hey, what do you guys think happened to the store described in Anatomy of a Business Failure???????)

I kind of want to recommend this book just because it's so weird, but since I doubt anyone's going to get it, here for free is why the store failed:
1. Too much spent on advertising.
2. 9/11 was bad.

Grade: Weird

"The Outcast Dead" (Horus Heresy series)

The Outcast Dead (Graham McNeil)

This was a disappointing book. The premise is gangbusters: An astropath - the psychics who can touch minds and are the only way of communicating faster than light over long distances - recieves a vision about the end of the Heresy, and a dirty dozen of space marines who were trapped on Earth when their legions went traitor have to bust him out of a Legio Custodes prison.
In execution, though, McNeil wastes a lot of time with two ancilliary plotlines that - spoiler alert - have fuck-all to do with the book's main plot. The result is that the book never really goes anywhere; Some shit happens, then it's over. It's a shame, too, because the early parts of the book exploring how the astropaths use shared psychic imagery when communicating (they can't send words, so they send visions) is really fascinating. The rest of the book, not so much. For Horus Heresy completionists only.

Grade: C

The Name of the Wind

The Name of the Wind
Patrick Rothfuss

Most people who know me know that I prefer Science Fiction more than Fantasy. This book came at the recommendation of a friend, but like everything I do, took me a while to actually sit down and read it.

I was pleasantly surprised that this was not a "typical" fantasy story, and in fact seemed to be more playing the traditional "Hero's Journey" method of fantasy storytelling extremely tongue-in-cheek; almost to be self-mocking, even though all the elements are there, tragic pasts, journey for revenge, etc.

The Name of the Wind is partially a "memoir" of the great hero Kvothe's great deeds that created his legendary status in the fantasy world he occupies. While most of the book takes place in the "past," the story of Kvothe growing up and learning magic (which, big points to Patrick Rothfuss for writing an original and new type of "magic" in fantasy stories), a small part of the story takes place in the "present," where we see the former hero Kvothe now in retirement and reminiscing about his adventures.

What follows is a very engaging story about the very first part of a hero's adventurous life, with all of the secrets of this fantasy world tantalizingly just out of reach. Normally this would annoy me because I would like at least some payoff, but Rothfuss's writing style instead makes you just crave to read more and more, and even after over 700 pages I am clamoring to get my hands on book 2 of this apparent 3 book story.

My only real complaint lies in characterization. Kvothe's adult hubris and pride are at least apparent, and his adolescent failings are on display, but he's kind of a perfect character otherwise, and at some points I wondered to myself if Rothfuss ever got accused of some slight mary-sueism. At least Kvothe never started yelling for 30 pages about why the Aturan Empire sucks because they have a social safety net or anything. As part of this complaint about characterization is probably my only real problem with the book, which is the adolescent romance between Kvothe and the heroine. The heroine, who, is characterized as charming, elusive, and beautiful, and only two of those are character traits. And, I found it difficult to find her charming when her character wasn't fleshed out all that much otherwise. She was more a character of her actions, most of which we found out about second-hand through Kvothe's own discovery of them.

Romance was annoying and bewildering as to why anyone would pine for it when I was an adolescent, and perhaps the whole Adults-reading-YA-Novels contributes to this idea that romances between 16-year-olds makes for compelling fiction, but their romance, such as it was stupid adolescents not being able to properly express feelings for one another seems more of an annoying drag on the story more than anything sweet or romantic. But was honestly the only sour spot I have with a book that is a compelling read otherwise.

Grade A-

"Carthage Must Be Destroyed"

Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization (Richard Miles)

Carthage - the Nicole Richie to Rome's Paris Hilton (I'm not dating myself with these refrences, am I?)  - has never had a proper English-language history (that I'm aware of) up until now. Happily, this is an excellent history, easily pulling off the difficult trick of being a page-turner even though you know what and when the end of the story is going to be. I only have two small nits to pick, the first one being that the author opens with the sacking and total distruction of Carthage, which I thought was kind of pointless, since nerds like me who will read this book alread know what happens. The second is the author's obsession with Hercules, who he won't stop talking about (Hey, I know that's where Xena got her start, but we don't need to hear about the guy all the time). Otherwise, this is a great book, and you owe it to yourself to give it a read even if your only interest in Carthage is as an early nemesis for the roman republic.

Grade: A-

"The Hundred Years"

The Hundred Years (Philip Guedalla)

A weird old history book (publication date 1936) covering the titular hundred years since the ascension of Queen Victoria. The book has an interesting structure where the author picks a year and then pops in on various places describing what's happening at the time. Unfortunately, I only made it about 93 pages into this book before bailing, when the author states that the Civil War was not inevitable. Frankly, I don't know where the hell the author got this idea, and disagreeing with this insane notion called everything else the author wrote into question. Shucks...

Grade: :/

"The World's Worst Cars"

The World's Worst Cars (Craig Cheetham)

A pocket-sized little book about - well, you can probably guess from the title. 150 cars are inside, each one with a two-page writeup, consisting of a page of text and then a photo of the car with various wise-ass remarks. Since there's 150 cars, some of them aren't as bad as the others; You get weird curiosities like a car with a jet engine or the infamous "Amphicar" mixed in with some good cars that just had horrible build quality. (Luckily, probably the two ugliest vechiles in modern history - Europe's Fiat Multipla and America's Pontiac Aztek - don't escape the author's gaze.)
I found this book to be a enjoyable little larf. If you're a big car fan, you may want to excersize some caution; The author has a lot of English cars I'd never heard of (British Leyland keeps coming in for beatings), and some of the Amazon reviews are rather scathing. Niether one of these really matters to me, which ears this book a solid

Grade: B

"The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (William L Shirer)

Here's another case where I don't really have much to add. This book is an undisputed classic, and only misses out on being the definitive history of the west in World War II because of Winston Churchill's memoirs - not exactly fair considering he was Prime Minister of the UK at the time.
So is this book as good as its reputation holds? In two words, uh, yes. This is the kind of history book I eat up - extremely long (over a thousand pages), but always readable. Admittedly, I skipped a few pages, but this is due more to the Nazis being one-note than anything else; The run-up to the launching of the invasion of Poland features a bunch of meetings which boil down to "Now we will invade Poland" and goes on a little long.
But this is the only part of the book that drags - a small section of a huge tome. The author concentrates more on what are to me the more interesting parts of the regime - its coming into power and adolescence, and less on its inevitable distruction. Not too much attention is paid to military matters except as how they impact the Reich as a whole - a wise decision, I think, given the wealth of material otherwise available purely about the battles fought. The usual caveat applies that any history of Nazi Germany is going to be a downer, but if you're not sick of World War II and can handle being depressed for over a thousand pages, this is a great read.

Grade: A

"O Albany!"

O Albany: Improbable City of Political Wizards, Fearless Ethnics, Spectacular Aristocrats, Splendid Nobodies, and Underrated Scoundrels (William Kennedy)

This book is a mess. I read a review that states that a "straightforward, chronological history" - you know, the kind that makes sense - would "waste Kennedy's storytelling talents"; So instead here's this, which seems like Kennedy sat down with a tape recorder, then took his rambling and slapped the whole thing into a book. I just couldn't follow this book at all; On one page we're in 1890, the next page it's 1916, the page after that World War I has just ended, and the page after that we're in 1865 and Lincoln is visiting. Frankly, I think Albany has an interesting enough history that starting at the beginning with the Dutch arriving would be worth reading, but I couldn't make heads or tails out of this disaster. I note on the cover leaf that portions of this book appeared in the Knickerbocker Press, and if this is just a bunch of newspaper columns thrown together - it would explain, if not excuse, the mash between the covers.
(Also, "Fearless Ethnics", what?)

Grade: F

"Holy Sh*t!"

Holy Sh*t! The World's Weirdest Comic Books (Paul Gravett & Peter Stanbury)

Well, it's pretty much all there in the title - here's a interesting little book collecting some of the world's oddest comic books, running the gamut from Italian porno spider-woman knockoffs to the Archie-styled Hansi ("The girl who loved the swastika"). Each comic includes a full-page cover, a sample frame and a short discription. My only real complaint is that I'd like to see more of some of these; If you want to see more "Trucker Fags in Denial" or "Godzilla vs Barkley", who knows how easy those are to track down. (Also, it would be nice if the book was a little bigger, but then it wouldn't exactly be a bathroom book.) My personal favorite is Genus, specifically the "Special Extra Large Lesbian Unicorn Issue" featured here (the author dryly notes that the extra large "refers to the size of the issue, not the lesbian unicorns").

Grade: B